The Time Machine by H. G. Wells Revisited

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:01][music] [music] [music] >> Hello my friends. Hello and welcome once again to stately Von Manner where Roger and I have returned.

[00:00:33]For the Sunday Penguin, it's time for the Sunday Penguin once again.

[00:00:37]Roger, you're not wearing a tie. He's no class this guy. Don't you know it's the Sunday Penguin?

[00:00:44]>> [sighs and gasps] >> So today for the Sunday Penguin, we're going to be revisiting a book that I talked about before, but it's been a long time. And I really like this book.

[00:00:54]So let's talk about it again, Roger.

[00:00:57]We're talking about The Time Machine from H.G. Wells, which is one of my very favorite books. It's certainly one of my very favorite science fiction stories.

[00:01:07]Early science fiction story from H.G.

[00:01:10]Wells writing at a time when science fiction as a genre didn't really exist.

[00:01:15]At least it didn't exist under the name of science fiction.

[00:01:19]This book was published in 1895.

[00:01:24]And H.G. Wells uh did write an earlier time travel story called The Chronic Argonauts, which I'm kind of surprised Penguin didn't include that. I'm I'm kind of surprised most classic editions of The Time Machine don't include that in an appendix or something.

[00:01:43]Um because it's an it's it's an interesting it's an interesting little story that I only have as an ebook.

[00:01:50]And I think you can get that for free.

[00:01:52]It's interesting, The Chronic Argonauts.

[00:01:54]But that was an earlier version of what eventually became this story. Very different, actually.

[00:02:01]But it was an earlier time travel story.

[00:02:05]But this story all about a scientist who creates a time machine.

[00:02:11]And this was probably one of the very first science fiction stories I ever read. It was probably maybe the third book I read as a kid.

[00:02:24]And I was very excited to read it because I knew about H.G. Wells because I had seen some movies on television based on stories that H.G. Wells had written. So, I knew he was a science fiction writer and wrote cool stuff.

[00:02:38]I remember when I was a kid, the first trap chapter seemed a little dry, but after that it was awesome.

[00:02:45]And indeed this story starts with the time traveler who is invited some of his friends over.

[00:02:52]And he talks about time.

[00:02:58]And how time is simply another dimension.

[00:03:03]And how you can travel a long time just the same way you travel along the different dimensions if you have a proper machine. If If a proper machine existed, you could use it to travel through time the same way you could use a balloon at this time to travel up.

[00:03:21]Which otherwise you would not be able to do.

[00:03:25]So, his friends are skeptical.

[00:03:32]But a week later, uh some of his friends get together again and the time traveler has actually been on a journey on the time machine which he built in his basement.

[00:03:44]Or actually no, it was down the hall in his in his workshop.

[00:03:49]And we never get a full description of the time machine, which I would have liked.

[00:03:55]The time machine is some sort of It It almost sounds like a bicycle because it has a saddle.

[00:04:00]But, it seems like some sort of iron framed device which you go in and sit on, and it has levers, and you could pull the levers, and they will take you through time.

[00:04:15]The probably the most famous version of this is in the film The Time Machine from the 1950s, which has a beautiful time machine.

[00:04:25]But, you'll see some others other different versions of it uh in other movies, but you never get a completely clear view of it in the in the novel.

[00:04:38]And even as a as a young person, I had questions about the time traveler's time journey, you know, um And one thing that the time traveler himself mentions [snorts] it that worries him when he travels through time is when he's going into the future because in this story, he's not interested in going to the past. He's interested in going to the future and and finding out what happens to civilization, human civilization.

[00:05:09]And one thing he's worried about is, well, when I travel through time, what will happen if when I stop the machine, there's something else in the space that I occupy?

[00:05:19]You know, that could be so bad that it might actually cause an explosion from different atoms crashing together.

[00:05:27]This concerned him. He did It didn't concern him so much when he was putting the time machine together. But, once he started the journey, he was like, "Damn.

[00:05:35]Now, I'm really worried about this."

[00:05:38]Which seems, you know, a valid worry.

[00:05:45]The thing about a time machine, though, is is that there there are all kinds of problems that have to be overcome because, first of all, of course, if it were a time machine, it could not it wouldn't work well, it wouldn't work in a way to make you survive the journey unless the machine moved through space as well as through time.

[00:06:11]Of course, and and this I didn't consider the what I first read this story, probably the first few times I've read this story.

[00:06:18]I've read this story a few times.

[00:06:21]But, of course, a time machine would have to travel through space as well as through time because the Earth is always moving and there's a very good chance that when you ended your journey into the future, you would just end up in empty space, you know, because the Earth has traveled on.

[00:06:42]And so, you would actually need, I think, to make your time machine work, you would need the machine to be able to travel through space, and I think you would need a computer to make the calculations about where the planet would be uh when you arrive, you know, in the future.

[00:07:07]I'm not sure you could calculate that without a computer, you know. So, there are there are issues with time travel that have to be resolved just there, you know. So, you end up someplace close to where you started off with started out on in space, you know.

[00:07:23]And, of course, there's also the other problem in that the the ground that you're that the machine is sitting on isn't going to be at the same level that it was when you left, you know. The building you're in, if you're in a building, is probably going to be gone and replaced by the time you get to the future. And if you're outside, there might be a building there, you know, this is our earlier problem, or just the ground will be at a different level, particularly if you travel far, far in time, like our time traveler here does, who goes to the year 802701.

[00:07:59]That's pretty far.

[00:08:02]But H.G. Wells doesn't concern himself too much with this. I'm sure he was aware of it because he knows that the planet moves, you know.

[00:08:13]But he didn't concern himself too much with that because he was interested in the actual story that he was telling of the time machine going of the of the time traveler going on the time machine into the future because he's interested in where humanity might end up.

[00:08:28]And indeed his time traveler ends up in a very different world. But it is a world that ended up where it did because of where society was when H.G. Wells was living.

[00:08:42]He was He was picturing a future age where the effects of the social of the society he was living, you know, had unexpected repercussions and changed in unexpected ways.

[00:09:01]Because H.G. Wells, more than anything else, was interested in human society, human culture, the ways it could go wrong.

[00:09:13]And he He was he was kind of obsessed almost uh with the idea of the eventual outcomes of our culture.

[00:09:26]How could we change our culture to make it better?

[00:09:29]And what will happen if it gets worse, you know?

[00:09:32]He was He was very interested in that kind kind And he allows his speculations full reign in this book.

[00:09:43]Where the Time Traveler ends up in this future world where human beings seem, when he first gets there, it's like a garden paradise, you know, it's a beautiful world. There are buildings there that seem kind of run down.

[00:09:56]And they are the the Eloi exist in this world, which seem to be a very simple people only concerned with goofing around, you know.

[00:10:07]They're just they're almost sexless in that you cannot without difficulty distinguish between men and women because they're just, you know, all dressed in kind of the same outfits and have the same kind of goofy haircuts, I guess.

[00:10:20]And they're just they're almost like children and then they're just running around playing and having a good time and they don't care about anything, it seems like.

[00:10:30]They don't take anything seriously.

[00:10:32]They're just living this idyllic existence.

[00:10:36]And of course, as a result, all human progress has ground to a stop and probably seems to have for a long time.

[00:10:46]But of of course, we don't leave it at that.

[00:10:48]There is a dark secret of this world, which the Time Traveler discovers and that is when he discovers the horrific Morlocks who also exist in this world.

[00:11:00]A subterranean version of human beings that have degenerated after years and years and years of living under the ground to kind of this these albino-like ghastly ape-like monsters. And they're they're pretty frightening. They're little creatures just like the Eloi, but they're little awful creatures who are very dangerous.

[00:11:27]And it seems that the Eloi are the descendants of the haves and the Morlocks are the descendants of the have-nots. But now the the Morlocks who live under the earth run things, you know.

[00:11:42]And they basically, and this is the ghastly secret of the Time Machine. So, you know, spoilers abound here, Roger.

[00:11:52]The the Morlocks have developed into ghastly, horrible, who basically farm the Eloi as you know, as the as their food, you know.

[00:12:08]The Eloi themselves are vegetarians.

[00:12:10]They just eat fruit and stuff. But the Morlocks, they take care of the Eloi in that they make their clothes and they make their sandals and all that kind of stuff and leave them up there for the for the Eloi. But then on certain nights they'll sneak up there and take the Eloi, kidnap them and bring them down under the earth into their subterranean world where they'll have dinner.

[00:12:35]And it's it's pretty ghastly. And the Time Traveler, he discovers the Morlocks. He see he sees these wells that exist, these big wells with stairs running down into the earth, and he hears machinery down there.

[00:12:48]And when the Time Traveler first gets to this world, he goes and hangs out with the Eloi for a while.

[00:12:54]Uh and his time his time machine ends up stolen.

[00:12:59]When he first shows up in the world, there's a huge statue that he that he sees when he arrives. And at the base of the statue are some doors.

[00:13:08]And it when he comes back, the it looks like the Time Machine has been dragged int- into the space underneath the statue and past the doors. But he can't get through the doors cuz they're bronze and he pounds on them and he can't get in.

[00:13:23]But he he figures out over time, after he's discovered the Morlocks, that the Morlocks have actually taken his machine.

[00:13:31]The Morlocks know what machines are.

[00:13:33]They still run machinery down down below the earth.

[00:13:37]They're much smarter, it seems, than the Eloi.

[00:13:40]And it's a ghastly situation, and it's it's a it's actually a result of how society has been stratified over time, and it's a result of cultural changes, but the origin of these cultural changes go all the way back to the Victorian age when H.G. Wells was writing his story.

[00:14:06]So, it's interesting. It's fascinating stuff, but it also works as just a great science fiction adventure story, really.

[00:14:13]It's really small, it's really short, it's really quick, and it's a great introduction to H.G. Wells' work, who was a really, really interesting guy.

[00:14:23]You know, he he was full of ideas, like I said, about culture and society.

[00:14:30]And he wrote a lot of books. He wrote probably right around 50 books, if not more, and a ton of stories.

[00:14:39]He wrote these kind of proto science fiction novels, but he didn't stop at that. He kind of changed after a while and wrote some different stuff. He had he had his science fiction his science fiction stories.

[00:14:51]He had his social novels. He had his conversation novels. So, he went he went through some different phases.

[00:14:58]And he became quite a famous writer in his day. H.G. Wells was a very famous man, and people were very, you know, aware of H.G. Wells as an individual, as opposed to just a writer of stories.

[00:15:13]He had some notorious affairs, Roger, which people paid attention to.

[00:15:20]Uh he was interesting guy.

[00:15:24]And you know, he believed that the only way humanity would survive as if we develop some kind of global civilization.

[00:15:32]Some kind of world government.

[00:15:36]Uh that would benefit everybody.

[00:15:38]And you know, he grew old and bitter because this did not happen. He he suffered through he suffered and survived World War I.

[00:15:48]And then you know, was very very concerned about another world war and another world war arrived. And after that, he was just like, "Damn, you know, people, man. We can't get it right."

[00:16:00]And he wrote some fascinating stuff.

[00:16:03]Because like I said, he was full of ideas. And Penguin actually has a very nice series of H.G. Wells novels. So, Penguin is a good place to find those books. Uh I think more is probably in print from Penguin now uh from H.G. Wells than other publishers, although I could be wrong.

[00:16:23]It's been a while since I checked, but they did come out with a really great series of H.G. Wells books with They all have really interesting covers.

[00:16:31]Um who does this cover design, by the way? Does it say anywhere?

[00:16:36]Kate Gibb. Kate Gibb does the cover.

[00:16:40]And so, yeah, this is actually a really good edition of the Time Machine.

[00:16:45]Has a serviceable introduction uh by Marina Warner.

[00:16:51]Notes by Stephen McClean.

[00:16:54]The Time Machine has had an interesting history as far as the text is concerned.

[00:16:58]It It continued to be tinkered with over the years.

[00:17:02]And uh so, you will find different versions of the Time Machine out there with different chapter breaks and things like that. The story is always pretty much exactly the same, pretty much. But, there are some differences in the texts.

[00:17:16]So, the notes on the text are particularly interesting in this volume.

[00:17:20]And I would recommend it. I recommend the Penguin edition because it's really good.

[00:17:24]And I would recommend The Time Machine as a good place to start if you're interested in H.G. Wells. It's a short little thing, like I said, and it tells a very interesting story. And we will be revisiting Roger the other novels of H.G. Wells, including his less less famous ones here on the Sunday Penguin.

[00:17:42]I hope you catch us again in the future.

[00:17:44]I will catch you next time.